ZAGREB (Croatia) • Fed up with red roses and choking on chocolates during Valentine's Day? Then get a dose of reality at Zagreb's Museum of Broken Relationships, a paean to personal objects and stories of heartbreak.

The museum in the old town of the Croatian capital has exerted a strange pull since 2006 on tourists looking for a more offbeat experience.

Its exhibits are donated by ordinary people who want to share what went wrong in their love stories, or those of relatives or friends.

From a toaster to an exercise bike to a pair of lacy bras, the small museum imbues seemingly ordinary objects with meaning through captions that detail their role in the unravelling of relationships around the world.

The stories swerve from humorous to heartrending.

This year, it features the divorce of a Danish woman and her husband, a soldier who could not readapt to ordinary life after a tour of duty in Afghanistan - part of a whole new typology of trauma.

"We have eight thematic rooms related in some way to relationships falling apart, like family, sports, love stories in the business environment," said artist Drazen Grubisic, one of the museum's founders. "A completely new topic is love relationships affected by war."

Particularly poignant is a vinyl record made by a young German in 1942 who dreamt of becoming a singer.

"It was a present for his girlfriend before he was sent to the war - where he was wounded in the throat and could not sing any more," Grubisic said. They never married, but she kept the record until she died.

One of the rooms with a lighter theme, called Take The Bitter With The Sweet, showcases objects such as a box of pizza-making ingredients - a love letter to one woman's break-up with gluten - and a diet book with the caption: "This was a present from my ex-fiance... Need I really continue?"

But the mood is heavier in Love In The Trenches, an exhibit with items such as a wedding dress from Turkey that was never worn because of the groom's unexpected death.

Nearby is a prosthetic leg from a Croatian war invalid who had an affair with a social worker.

"The prosthesis lasted longer than our love. It was made of sturdier material," says the caption.

The museum's unusual idea was born from a heartbreak itself.

When Grubisic and fellow artist Olinka Vistica broke up in 2003 after a four-year romance, they did not know what to do with their shared belongings and wanted to create an option other than the bin.

More than a decade later, the Croatian duo have taken the museum on tour to 50 cities around the globe, collecting new objects and stories along the way.

"When we started with the project, I had no idea what (kind of donations) we were going to get... but it turns out that people are so interesting, everybody has a story to tell," Grubisic told Agence France-Presse, adding that they receive about 200 objects by mail a year.

Mr Jon Turner, 33, a Briton who was travelling solo in Zagreb, agreed the authentic portrayal of love is a fitting occasion for any visitor on Valentine's Day.

"It's really beautiful, some things have made me laugh out loud, some things have made me cry, but, yeah, I think it's really nice - you get a snapshot of people's lives," he said.

The theme of the museum's next overseas stop, the city of York in England, will revolve around a different kind of break-up - Brexit, as the process of Britain's separation from the European Union is popularly known.

Organisers have put out a local call for donations that will offer a personal spin on the political drama.

"Recently ended a relationship? Wish to unburden the emotional load by erasing everything that reminds you of that painful experience?" the call of submissions asks.

"Don't," it advises, "one day you might regret it."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS